Friends,
Those who are now running around to get INR converted to CAD and getting Scotia Bank account sorted.
I will share something that I learned:
1) If you are opening account via Kotak Mahindra bank, it is not mandatory that you open a NRE and NRO account through them. You can simply ask them to open the Scotia Bank account under the startright program.
2) You can directly approach Scotia Bank and open the account from them as well. Here is their addresses in India
http://www.scotiabank.com/startright/en/files/12/07/Designated_Scotiabank_India_Branches.pdf
3) One can open an NRE/NRO account after getting an address in Canada. The account can be opened in Canada. I got this information from ICICI Bank.
The NRE/NRO account is not mandatory. If you have to send money to India, you can use services provided by Western Union or Money Gram.
4) To perform the one time transfer to Scotia Bank you can check with your bank and follow the formalities prescribed by them. In short, you can simply transfer money from your savings bank account to Scotia Bank account with the information provided by Scotia Bank.
Don't get confused with terms like NRO/NRE. You are not yet an NRI if you are in India. Kotak Mahindra officials don't state the above facts openly. They will ask you to transfer money from SB to NRO and from NRO to Scotia Bank. This will require a Charted Accountant's intervention and the ones referred to you by Kotak Mahindra will charge a bomb. Simply put, you just make a transfer directly from your Savings Account to Scotia Bank at a minimum fee.
